


our lady of light

by herrlucifer



Category: Kings
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:12:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herrlucifer/pseuds/herrlucifer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the end, it is Lucinda and her light, Lucinda and her grace, Lucinda and her shame. </p><p>In the end, it is Lucinda, alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	our lady of light

 

Lucinda Wolfson is born on a cloudy day in December. Her father cries when he first holds her because she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he's entirely delighted by this tiny human he has made.

(Her mother, groggy from the pain medicine, just watches. She is only twenty-two, and now, more than ever, she is unsure if this is the life she wants. Her husband, eleven years her senior, is a very convincing man, and that is both why she fell in love with him in the first place and why she is sitting here at all, watching him hold the daughter that feels more like his than theirs. He is a very convincing man, and that is why the sight of tears running down his face makes her wish she had never met him in the first place.)

 

-

 

Lucinda is a lovely little girl, the kind that makes everyone want to pat her cheek and call her darling. She excels in ballet and playing the violin and school, too; her father carries her picture in his wallet at all times in case there is an opportunity to brag.

This does not mean that he has time for her. He is a very busy man, charged with keeping the Wolfson family rich, and that is more important to him than his wife's nagging. After all, he married her because she was young and beautiful and ambitious, not so he could hear her complain. He does not hesitate to remind her of this.

He does not, however, believe in hiring nannies. If a girl's mother has no job, her job should be taking care of the child, and if the girl's mother wants a job, well- she already has one. She's a mother.

This results in a very lonely childhood. Her mother is resentful and keeps herself isolated in her room, leaving Lucinda to practice arithmetic and violin and watch the television by herself.

(She is watching television by herself when it happens. She is thirteen, on the cusp of adolescence, and it is Prince Jack's fifteenth birthday. His father is making a speech for the cameras and he is standing to the side, and she knows she is in love when he smiles.)

 

-

 

When she arrives at the castle and is shown to her room, she hides her diary in the air vent on a whim. It's not like it's chronicling anything scandalous, but it's her hopes and dreams and fears all written down in one place, and she doesn't want people reading it.

The longer she stays at the palace, the more careful she is about hiding it. Rose asks her uncomfortable questions and the staff watches her every move and she doesn't feel like they're seeing _her_ when they look at her. She doesn't know why she feels this way, but she does; it's like they're not talking to her, not smiling at her, but instead at a canvas. She fears more and more every day that they aren't exactly wrong, and so she clutches her one souvenir of herself as tightly as possible.

And still, she stays compliant, because she loves Jack. He ignores her when she tries to speak to him and doesn't look at her when he can help it, but she loves him in the kind of way that means she'll cry her eyes out alone after he snaps at her during dinner but come morning her makeup will be perfect and her smile will be a genuine mix of fear and adoration.

This is why she stays in the beginning. Before she realizes that they won't let her leave even if she tries, she stays because she loves him.

 

-

 

(The first thing she sees after Thomasina leaves the room is her diary on the desk. It is wide open, and some pages have been torn out.)

(She locks herself in the bathroom for two hours and never checks to see which ones they took, not even once. It is her first act of defiance.)

 

-

 

They're in the room for three days before she starts a conversation.

She's laying on the bed, staring at the ceiling; he's on the floor doing the same thing when she finally opens her mouth.

“I'm bored.”

Her voice is monotone and quiet, almost a whisper. He almost doesn't hear it, but when he does, he turns his head towards her, not even bothering to paste on a smirk.

“We could fuck.”

His suggestion is a crass one, a hopeless one, and he's hardly enthusiastic, but the vehemence in her response surprises him. She is firm, and it's obvious that she means it, though he isn't sure why.

“I'm never going to give you a child, Jack.”

He waits for her to continue, but she doesn't, and it is then that he truly looks at her. She is tired, with bags under her eyes and her makeup smeared, and he realizes that she is, perhaps, more than she first appeared.

He can't make himself think of her the in the same way, after that.

 

-

 

After three weeks, she starts to write again.

She's losing herself. She can feel it in her bones, that her soul is slowly leaving her, being sapped out like syrup out of a tree- she hates them for driving her to this, yes, but she needs to _write_. And so she does.

Not in her diary, though. Lucinda is not stupid. She knows that the moment she touches the paper, she will belong to them. Her thoughts must stay her own, and after a few minutes of clicking her pen she comes up with a solution.

It starts on her wrist. She writes about how she misses her father, how she yearns for fresh air. Jack either doesn't notice or he ignores it, which is to be expected, and she knows that even if the guards find out, they can't get a good look without her putting up a fight.

(Maybe, if she puts up a fight, they'll kill her. She things on this for hours, trying to decide if that would be a bad thing.)

As the days go by, she writes more and more, the spider thin lines of her letters crawling over her arm, her shoulder, her collarbone. On her stomach, she pleas to God for mercy. Her hip holds her best memories of birthday parties, and her right ankle simply says _why_ , over and over again, until it bleeds together so much it's impossible to read.

It is clear, once he has noticed her behavior, that Jack thinks she's losing it. She doesn't care. It is only the feeling of the water and soap washing her words away as she showers that can make her feel sane, if only for a moment, and she is not so desperate for his approval that she will give that up.

 

-

 

 

She asks for a violin only once.

She knows, by now, that they will not bring her any books. It is obvious in Thomasina's coldness, in the looks of pity the guards give her as they play cards outside her room. She still hopes, however, that she can convince- manipulate- just enough to save her sanity, if not her dignity, as well.

And so she asks.

Thomasina visits them on Wednesdays, every time to ask probing questions and take Lucinda's blood for a pregnancy test that only reduces her to tears the first time. Every time the woman is concise and says no more than necessary. Every time Jack refuses to look at her.

On the third week, just before Lucinda begins to write, she grabs Thomasina's shoulder just as she is about to leave. Her voice is raw.

“Please,” she says. “May I- have a violin?”

Thomasina only stares, and for the first time Lucinda becomes aware of the shadows under her eyes and the way her hand shakes. She realizes that she will not succeed.

“I've heard,” she clears her throat, her words bitter in her mouth, “that some songs- they can be aphrodisiacs, of sorts.”

It sounds weak, even to her, but she still _hopes_ -

The other woman shrugs her hand off. Her eyes are frigid. The plan has failed.

“I'm sorry,” Thomasina says, though she does not sound very sorry at all. She turns to leave.

There is a hardness in Lucinda's throat and she wants to scream, to yell that she didn't _do_ anything, she doesn't deserve this, they will all rot in _hell_ for keeping her here.

Instead, she sits down against the wall with her knees against her chest, making herself as small as possible. As tears roll down her cheeks, she begins to pray.

 

-

 

“Do you still love me?”

He asks her after fifty-four days. It is the first time he has spoken in a week.

“Yes,” she says, her eyes dry.

“I'm sorry.” He sounds stilted, awkward, but his words are genuine.

After several seconds, she looks at him. She knows he is going to be gone soon; knows before he does that God has a plan for him.

She smiles.

“Don't be.”

 

-

 

In the end, it is Lucinda and her light, Lucinda and her grace, Lucinda and her shame.

In the end, it is Lucinda, alone.

 

-

 

She keeps on praying.

 


End file.
